Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Open 24 Hours,
winner of The 2013 Blue Lynx Poetry Prize is an extraordinary volume
of poetry by one of LA's own; master teacher, poet, and cultural
icon, Suzanne Lummis. This is a double sassy book of poetry that even
so, teeters on the edge of historical fiction, and delivers a guised
but sophisticated curriculum.

and pieces dedicated to
various poetic devices as in “Sad Poem In Winter - With Assonance,
Consonance and Other Occasional Effects,”

"..like
a dream

Of Hollywood. Meanwhile

The rain strikes swollen
rags,

shopping carts, the
essential smashed flat Styrofoam cup.

I want to burn like a saint,

but I can't, so I'll smoke

my last menthol down to the
butt.",

are an education unto
themselves and of benefit to writers. Lummis is always teaching, as
in, “Broken Rules #5, How To Write the Love Poem”:

"Don't say My soul
longs for you,

Say, In this life I am
occasioning a body

That needs yours. And
wants."

She breaks it down to the
easiest equation. Poet? Life coach? Solvable. Certainly, in print.

The
poems in this book sizzle on the page like a neon sign in a neglected
neighborhood after closing. Lummis' crisp, sometimes caustic voice,
and quick wit put us on guard as though we are 'in danger' (the title
of her earlier collection.)

The
characters reveal themselves in short visual clips, almost like the
flickering of the aforementioned neon:

"His wife is this
heart-shaped

metallic balloon that got
loose

and bobbed up high over

the jammed intersection..."

The poems compel us to
continue, like a dark metal stairwell down which we can hear the
sound of our own heels descending. They have no dreamy penthouse
views, no highfalutin' family traditions.

They are fire escape poems,
rooftops that might house broods of doves, slews of unsavory
situations, and characters standing on their own lean shadows,
falling prey without fanfare, not a shred of schmaltz. These poems
are fearless jumpers without gear.

If
you love the seeded underbelly of the streets of L.A., spiffed up
with the glamor and intrigue of Hollywood noir, you will love Lummis'
sensibilities, and you will want to have her books. If you don't yet,
get them for sure. Soon you will find yourself watching old Raymond
Chandler movies and visiting unsung landmarks you had forgotten
existed. The books will become your late night bedfellows.

But
don't be a wimp. Lummis won't hold your hand. And she won't give the
plot away without an investigation. If you want to know who dunnit,
you'll have to follow the clues, be careful not to trip over the
casualties.